You've been diagnosed with heart problems, high blood pressure, diabetes or other medical conditions

You've been sedentary for over a year

You're pregnant

You have chest pain, or experience dizziness or fainting spells

You're recovering from an injury or illness

If you're over 65 and don't currently exercise

It's important you do this first because your level of fitness is important to determine whether you're suitable for the exercises I featured in this site and also for your safety and general health.

So do this first thing first.

Setting your Goals when Doing Exercise Program at Home

What are your goals in starting an exercise program at home?

Do you want to:

Tone specific troubled areas in your body?

Do total body toning for all your muscles?

Lose weight?

Whatever goals you've, be specific about them. When you don't have specific goals, it's hard to measure your performance as you move along, to see how far you've progressed.

It's probably good to field a few questions to yourself, as guiding parameters to help you set your goals:

What do you want to achieve with the home program?

Are your goals realistic and achievable?

How do you achieve your goals?

When do you want to achieve your goals?

What do you reward yourself with when you achieve goals?

After setting your goals, you'll need to figure out how to achieve them.

Say, one of your goals is to tone your butts, thighs and hips.

You need to figure out how it's gonna be done.

By following instruction in a book on toning exercise? By getting into video-based exercise workouts?

Or by hiring a trainer ?

Once you know what to do to achieve your goals, move your butts and do the act!!!

Ooophs........

May be you're the type who find it hard to get up and get going.

No sweat there. I've got here some "nice" ways to get you out of your couch and act!

Mark down your exercise sessions each week in bold red ink

Take your measurements when you start, then re-take them every six weeks to see if you're "measuring up", "measuring down" or "no change"

Set weekly goals and reward yourself every time you achieve them (well, like splurge on new workout wears or workout shoes)

Keep a workout journal and look through it regularly to chart your progress

Work out with friends or family members for added motivation

A Cozy Place to Begin your Exercise Program at Home

You should know how much space you need for a workout. Zero in on a favorite room or a cozy corner in your house to begin with.

As you'll be doing toning and strength exercises, you would need adequate space for them. Try stand in the center of a room, then lunge forward, backward and to both sides.

If you've enough room to luxuriously move around, the room has "adequate" space for your workout.

Scout out your room to make sure it's free of things so that you won't trip over (worst, get yourself injured) while working out.

A Flat Surface to Workout on

At home, the types of floor surfaces you can workout on usually come in the forms of carpet, linoleum, tile, marble or wood. You need to make sure that the surface is flat. This is crucial as uneven surface makes it difficult for you in your exercise movement.

If you just started working out, there may not be the need now to have a home gym. You still do good with the basics like a comfy room, a pair of shoes and workout wear.

Proper Nutrition

Accompany your exercise program at home with proper nutrition as you need a healthy diet to help keep your body in top form to do all your daily activities.

Analyze your diet, find out how many calories you're eating and whether you're getting all your nutrients. You'd be surprised how much "junk", "fat" and "sugar" stuff you put into your body -time to make some changes in your diet!

The easier way to make changes is to start these eating habits first:

Eat lots of fruits and veggies as the fibers in them will make you feel full

Drink plenty of water to hydrate yourself

Stop those mindless munching, emotional eating or nibbling out of boredom as these are the culprits that pile on your pounds!

You think I'm touching something not important in relation to you having an exercise program at home?

N..o..o..o...

All the more important since the useful and insightful tips will help you do correct exercises and let you enjoy your time sweating out!

Stay Motivated! In your Exercise Program at Home!

Remember you're working out on your own. It's pretty hard to stay on top of things all the time!

Sometimes, you feel like you're not getting anywhere -

You're discouraged because you don't see results as fast as you want them to; you're tired; you're fed up with the whole idea of exercise; you find yourself dragging your feet when it's time to exercise....

And you just want to throw in the towel and call it quit......

Hey, welcome to my club.....I did that all the time!!!

I overcame this by visualizing myself having a fit, toned, healthy and beautiful body and looking absolutely fab in all kinds of clothes, to psyche myself up.

Of course, the pep talk, support and mentoring advice from a trainer go a long way to sustain me in the home exercise program.

That's why if you start out fresh and you opt for an exercise program at home, I recommend you go for personal training.

You may find that a helping and supporting hand from a trainer could be the magical motivation you need.

I also reward myself richly once I stay on course or achieve my goals by having fun nights out with friends or spoil myself rotten with luxurious body spa treatment or buying new clothes or.....

Let's face it, you'll do good progress in your program because you'll be looking forward to these special, extra rewards for yourself!

What if you Hit a Plateau?

You hit a plateau if your exercise program at home is the same with same number of reps every time you work out since your body will adapt to that workout, over a period of time. You'll not see much progress and you'll feel frustrated.